The spotlight is on Grace Gitaari, Senior Account Cloud Engineer, Oracle, Kenya.

Grace Gitaari has consistently demonstrated a strong commitment to promoting the Oracle Academy program to educators and students in Kenya, whether in universities or at organizations developed to advance digital literacy for young people. Through activities such as leading workshops, speaking at events, running girls-in-tech bootcamps, and sharing her career journey stories, she actively has raised awareness and encouraged participation in the Oracle Academy program.

In her position as Oracle Senior Account Cloud Engineer, she interacts daily with customers considering or embarking on implementation of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). She advises, instructs, and seeks to ensure success for Oracle customers. Such deep understanding of what makes OCI work ideally equips her for the additional role she has accepted: Oracle Academy Ambassador.

Grace Gitaari holds a bachelor’s degree in Statistics from Kenyatta University and joined Oracle Kenya in 2022 after seven years working in Oracle partner and distributor companies in a consulting and business development capacity.

Having acquired Oracle Professional Associate certification in Cloud, Oracle APEX, Database, and AI, her commitment to continuous learning and its impact on career paths sets an example for students to follow.

Oracle Academy: What is your conception of the Ambassador program?

Grace Gitaari: As a cloud engineer, I constantly deal with customer requirements, matching them to Oracle’s cloud platform, helping to build architectures that will allow them to run their services on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Students do not always see a correlation to the real world in what they learn at university. I did not get quite enough of that in my own studies. So, through examples from my daily work, I want them not only to learn the nitty gritty of cloud computing but to be confident in applying those skills once they enter the job market. This helps to create a competitive edge for their future employers. I want them to be comfortable with a technology they already know, so they are not starting at ground level; they can say ’I may not know everything, but I know this and how it works.’

At the faculty level, I will be engaging with educators, explaining the value of Oracle Cloud both as an aid to teaching and as a full course in cloud computing. Recently, I took part in a virtual bootcamp for educators in Sub-Saharan Africa, demonstrating how teaching can become more innovative and impactful by using Oracle Cloud and Oracle APEX. As testimony, we were joined online by faculty members from Kenya and West Africa. Florence Kimani from Riara University shared the way these programs have empowered her teaching, resulting in improved student engagement and outcomes, leading to dynamic careers.

Oracle Academy: What made you accept the Ambassador role?

Grace Gitaari: I knew about Oracle Academy from participation in Oracle Women’s Leadership events — OWL — mentoring students and helping in initiatives such as encouraging girls to become educated in STEM fields. When the Oracle Academy country lead for Kenya went on leave and I answered the call to provide backup, I started to visit member institutions and found that I really liked it. I enjoyed talking to young people about what they will experience in the job market. I liked their hunger to get ahead: their fast thinking, their drive to enter the workforce with new ideas. When the Ambassador program was launched, I was singled out as a candidate and seized the opportunity.

Oracle Academy: Well deserved. What type of activities are you engaged in?

Grace Gitaari: One of the STEM events was a team-up during International Women’s Month with Pwani Teknowgalz, a not-for-profit aimed at bridging the gender gap of women in technology, providing them with code hacking, website development, and other skills. My talk focused on encouraging girls to embrace technology as a pathway to digital careers. The percentage of women in IT in Kenya has grown a lot in the past 10 years. I am a case in point; in my technical team we are two women handling the whole of Kenya in the cloud space. I like the feedback from girls listening to me speak who say, ’she does it, so I can do it too.’

At Oracle’s offices in Nairobi, I have spoken to dozens of visiting students during ‘Getting started with Oracle’ workshops that give a foundational understanding of cloud computing. We also have hosted more advanced students from Oracle Academy member institutions such as Kenyatta University, Zetech University, University of Nairobi, and Technical University of Kenya, diving deeper into the transformative power of Oracle AI, Oracle APEX and OCI.

Outside of Oracle I was recently invited by leading telco company to talk at their Safaricom De{c0}dE event, where I presented on ‘AI’s role in Future Data Center Architectures’, outlining the operational changes that AI is causing in data centers. I also have spoken at CIO and partner forums.

Oracle Academy: A lot going on…

Grace Gitaari: Oracle Academy’s influence and free software is not limited to the curriculum taught in universities. In collaboration with the Northern Innovation and Empowerment Hub, the government of Kenya and University of Garissa, colleagues and I participated in a digital skills program for marginalized girls and women in an area of Northern Kenya. It was fabulous to co-host the celebration of 45 girl students, who completed the program, a ceremony that coincided with International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

Oracle Academy: Quite an ambassadorial agenda! And do you also encourage certification?

Grace Gitaari: Absolutely. I encourage students 100% and again give myself as an example. I have four Oracle certifications, and my stretch goal is to complete 17 more exams. Even getting 10 certifications will be a milestone. I promoted the OCI Race to Certification 2025 program, consisting of free training from Oracle University for students seeking Oracle Cloud certification.

I believe firmly in continuous learning and, when at times students I mentor look amused to see my nose in a book, I share a couple of stories. At university I majored in statistics. But later I wanted to follow computer science. I was told I could not because I did not take physics as a subject in high school. However, my mind was set on a career in computing and so I boned up on what computer science colleagues were learning and presented myself for interviews. In my second job interview for a technical position, I was hired on the spot. When I dizzily asked why, the interviewer said, ‘you seem to be the one with the highest desire to learn.’

This tale resonates with young people who have the urge to make something of themselves. In another anecdote, reinforcing the power of learning, Oracle Kenya recently had some openings. A couple of girls contacted me to say they would have applied but didn’t have Oracle certification, although they did have cloud knowledge. What I told them was that cloud concepts are the same, whether it be Oracle, AWS, Azure, or another. Naming conventions may be different, but the way they work extrapolates from one to another. Learning one cloud makes your learning path to another a lot shorter.

In summary, my advice is always to learn as much as you can; it will always serve you well in the future.

Oracle Academy: Inspiring. Lastly, what are your outside interests?

Grace Gitaari: Although related to my job, mentoring is something I engage in outside of office hours. Once a month, I mentor girls through a program run by a local community-based organization. The purpose is to equip primary school girls with essential life skills and to help them explore talents and skills beyond the traditional school curriculum — whether in sports, arts, or technology. It is rewarding.

Beyond work, I love reading. I am curating a personal library that spans various genres ranging from technical and personal development, to fiction and non-fiction. I particularly enjoy reading novels by African writers to discover the rich and diverse culture across the continent.

And lastly, I love road trips. I do not have a fixed destination, it's the driving I enjoy, as much as the end point.

Thank you, Grace Gitaari, for volunteering to be an Oracle Academy Ambassador.